Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, lit up a committee hearing Wednesday by calling for aggressive prosecution of financial institutions involved in the laundering of illegal drug money.

The hearing, held by the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Committee on Financial Services, focused on the question of whether large financial institutions are immune from federal prosecution. Mythili Raman, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, appeared as the sole witness.

Congresswoman Waters has long been critical of the disparity between the aggressive prosecution of individuals caught with illegal drugs and the lack of prosecution of large financial institutions and their officers which facilitate the drug trade.